Science

The Associated Press reports: Earth’s protective ozone layer is finally healing from damage caused by aerosol sprays and coolants, a new United Nations report said. The ozone layer had been thinning since the late 1970s. Scientists raised the alarm and ozone-depleting chemicals were phased out worldwide. As a result, the upper ozone layer above the Northern Hemisphere should be completely …

Agence France-Presse reports: Life expectancy in 2040 is set to rise at least a little in all nations but the rankings will change dramatically, with Spain taking the top spot while China and the United States trade places, researchers said Wednesday. With a projected average lifespan of nearly 85.8 years, Spain — formerly in 4th place — will dethrone Japan, …

CBS News reports: If you picture Earth as a ball spinning through space. the folks who recently gathered at a park in Arcadia, California, are eager to argue: you’re wrong! Earth is actually “flatter than a pancake,” said Nathan Thompson, part of a movement of people who call themselves Flat Earthers. They insist the Earth is, well, flat. We’re living, …

CNBC reports: The Food and Drug Administration is threatening to pull new e-cigarette products from shelves if the companies don’t prove they’re selling the items legally. The FDA sent letters on Friday to 21 e-cigarette manufacturers requesting information to investigate whether they illegally introduced more than 40 new devices and nicotine liquids to the market without receiving agency approval. Business …

The BBC reports: A US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut were forced to make an emergency landing after their Russian Soyuz rocket malfunctioned en route to the International Space Station (ISS). Shortly after taking off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Nick Hague and Alexey Ovchinin reported a problem with the rocket’s booster. The men were forced into a “ballistic descent”, …

The New York Times reports: A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.” The report, issued on Monday …

The Associated Press reports: Leon Lederman, an experimental physicist who won a Nobel Prize in physics for his work on subatomic particles and coined the phrase “God particle,” died Wednesday at 96. Lederman directed the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago from 1978 to 1989. He’s described as a giant in his field who also had a passion for sharing …

Gizmodo reports: In its ongoing crusade against rad teens, the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it raided the headquarters of Juul Labs, which is under investigation for potentially marketing e-cigarettes to children. The “unannounced on-site inspection,” executed on Friday, resulted in the seizure of “thousands of pages of documents,” according to the FDA. The surprise inspection of Juul …

The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight. The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. And critics say the proposed …

The Associated Press reports: Curiosity and awe have greeted a complete lunar eclipse, the longest one of this century and visible in much of the world. The so-called “blood moon,” when it turns a deep red, was visible at different times in Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and South America when the sun, Earth and moon lined up perfectly, casting Earth’s …

Wired reports: The Italian Space Agency announced Wednesday that researchers have detected signs of a large, stable body of liquid water locked away beneath a mile of ice near Mars’ south pole. The observations were recorded by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument—Marsis for short. “Marsis was born to make this kind of discovery, and now …

NBC News reports: A mind-controlling parasite found in cat feces may give people the courage they need to become entrepreneurs, researchers reported Tuesday. They found that people who have been infected with the Toxoplasma gondii parasite are more likely to major in business and to have started their own businesses than non-infected people. The parasite, which makes rodents unafraid of …

Delaware Public Media reports: Licensed mental health professionals in Delaware are now prohibited from practicing conversion therapy on minors, thanks to a new law signed by Gov. John Carney Monday. Conversion or reparative therapy attempts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people. Delaware is the 15th state plus Washington D.C. to ban the practice, according to …

The Associated Press reports: Kraftwerk fans are used to hearing otherworldly tunes, but the German electronic music pioneers took it to another level at a gig in Stuttgart. Video posted Saturday by the European Space Agency shows German astronaut Alexander Gerst “dropping in” for a live performance from the International Space Station. Using a tablet computer with a virtual synthesizer, …

Politico reports: The Trump administration is suppressing an Environmental Protection Agency report that warns that most Americans inhale enough formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life to put them at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments, a current and a former agency official told POLITICO. The warnings are contained in a draft health assessment EPA scientists completed just …

Via press release from the National Institutes for Health: An experimental vaccine regimen based on the structure of a vulnerable site on HIV elicited antibodies in mice, guinea pigs and monkeys that neutralize dozens of HIV strains from around the world. The findings were reported today in the journal Nature Medicine by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and …

The Arizona Republic reports: The Arizona Department of Education hopes to make changes to science standards, which will affect K-12 districts and charter schools. The changes include removing the word “evolution” in some areas and describing it as a “theory” in others. Some educators and scientists are outraged by the change. In the draft, the word “evolution” is crossed out …

CNBC reports: A jolt of electricity is delivered to a body with bolts attaching its head to its neck. It’s a scene straight out of a horror movie, but it is eerily close to Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero [photo] and Chinese surgeon Xiaoping Ren’s plan to transplant a human head — down to the neck bolts and electricity. Canavero and …

The Weather Channel reports: Asteroid 2010 WC9 will pass relatively close to Earth at 6:05 p.m. EST Tuesday, passing within 126,419 miles of the planet, or about half the distance from Earth to the moon, according to NASA. “Asteroids this size approach about this close about once every decade or so, on average,” Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for …

USA Today reports: With the orange flames of its engine lighting up the foggy sky for miles around, a car-sized Mars lander rocketed into space early Saturday in a first-of-its-kind launch from California on a mission to probe beneath the surface of the Red Planet. The nearly $1 billion Mars InSight probe blasted off shortly after 4 a.m. local time, …